1902267 (Refugee)

The Administrative Appeals Tribunal considered the applications of a primary applicant, two child applicants, and an applicant partner for protection visas. The primary applicant and child applicants, who had left Australia, did not respond to the Tribunal's invitation to comment on information indicating they were no longer in the country. The applicant partner, a UK national, failed to appear at a scheduled hearing.

The central legal issue before the Tribunal was whether any of the applicants qualified for a protection visa, specifically whether Australia had protection obligations towards them. This required determining if the applicants met the criteria set out in section 36(2) of the Migration Act 1958, which includes being a non-citizen in Australia and either being a refugee or facing a real risk of significant harm upon removal to a receiving country.

The Tribunal reasoned that for a protection visa to be granted, the applicant must be physically present in Australia. Movement records indicated that the primary applicant and the two child applicants had departed Australia, and they did not provide any response to the Tribunal's notification of this fact. Consequently, these three applicants did not satisfy the criterion of being in Australia and were therefore ineligible for protection visas. Regarding the applicant partner, while his nationality as a UK citizen was accepted, the Tribunal was not satisfied, based on the available information, that there were substantial grounds to believe he would face a real risk of significant harm if removed to the United Kingdom. This assessment considered the complementary protection criterion under section 36(2)(aa) of the Act.

The Tribunal affirmed the decision not to grant protection visas to any of the applicants.